Adjectives of Order

I remember teaching my own order of adjectives lesson in the Czech Republic.

Adjectives of Order
by Alexandra Teague

That summer, she had a student who was obsessed
with the order of adjectives. A soldier in the South
Vietnamese army, he had been taken prisoner when

Saigon fell. He wanted to know why the order
could not be altered. The sweltering city streets shook
with rockets and helicopters. The city sweltering

streets. On the dusty brown field of the chalkboard,
she wrote: The mother took warm homemade bread
from the oven. City is essential to streets as homemade

is essential to bread . He copied this down, but
he wanted to know if his brothers were lost before
older, if he worked security at a twenty-story modern

downtown bank or downtown twenty-story modern.
When he first arrived, he did not know enough English
to order a sandwich. He asked her to explain each part

of Lovely big rectangular old red English Catholic
leather Bible. Evaluation before size. Age before color.
Nationality before religion. Time before length. Adding

and, one could determine if two adjectives were equal.
After Saigon fell, he had survived nine long years
of torture. Nine and long. He knew no other way to say this.

Magdalene Poem

by John Taggart

Love enters the body

enters
almost
almost completely breaks and enters into the body

already beaten and broken

peaceful if breaking if breaking
and entering the already broken is peaceful

untouchable fortunately
untouchable.

if there are any heavens

for Connie

if there are any heavens
by e.e. cummings

if there are any heavens my mother will
(all by herself) have
one. It will not be a pansy heaven nor
a fragile heaven of lilies-of-the-valley but
it will be a heaven of blackred roses.

my father will be (deep like a rose
tall like a rose)

standing near my
(swaying over her
silent)
with eyes which are really petals and see

nothing with the face of a poet really which
is a flower and not a face
with hands
which whisper
This is my beloved my

(suddenly in sunlight
he will bow,

& the whole garden will bow)

If There Is Something To Desire

If There Is Something To Desire, 9, 17, 18
by Vera Pavlova

9

I broke your heart.
Now barefoot I tread
on shards.


17

Why is the word yes so brief?
It should be
the longest,
the hardest,
so that you could not decide in an instant to say it,
so that upon reflection you could stop
in the middle of saying it.


18

—Sing me The Song of Songs.
—Don't know the words.
—Then sing the notes.
—Don't know the notes.
—Then simply hum.
—Forgot the tune.
—Then press my ear
to your ear
and sing what you hear.

National Poetry Month 2010

April is National Poetry Month! You can sign up for a poem-a-day by e-mail at the Academy of American Poets website. Last year, I posted a poem for every day in April, and though I may not have the time for such an undertaking this year, I'll try to be a little more active.

Happy poetry reading.

Sonnets on Love XIII

by Jean de Sponde

"Give me a place to stand," Archimedes said,
"and I can move the world." Paradoxical, clever,
his remark which first explained the use of the lever
was an academic joke. But if that dead

sage could return to life, he would find a clear
demonstration of his idea, which is not
pure theory after all. That putative spot
exists in the love I feel for you, my dear.

What could be more immovable or stronger?
What becomes more and more secure, the longer
it is battered by inconstancy and the stress

we find in our lives? Here is that fine fixed point
from which to move a world that is out of joint,
as he could have done, had he known a love like this.

The Buried Life

Long. But worth reading. Trust me.

The Buried Life
by Matthew Arnold

Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet,
Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet!
I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll.
Yes, yes, we know that we can jest,
We know, we know that we can smile!
But there's a something in this breast,
To which thy light words bring no rest,
And thy gay smiles no anodyne.
Give me thy hand, and hush awhile,
And turn those limpid eyes on mine,
And let me read there, love!, thy inmost soul.

Alas! is even love too weak
To unlock the heart, and let it speak?
Are even lovers powerless to reveal
To one another what indeed they feel?
I knew the mass of men concealed
Their thoughts, for fear that if revealed
They would by other men be met
With blank indifference, or with blame reproved;
I knew they lived and moved
Tricked in disguises, alien to the rest
Of men, and alien to themselves--and yet
The same heart beats in every human breast!

But we, my love!--doth a like spell benumb
Our hearts, our voices? must we too be dumb?

Ah! well for us, if even we,
Even for a moment, can get free
Our heart, and have our lips unchained;
For that which seals them hath been deep-ordained!
Fate, which foresaw
How frivolous a baby man would be--
By what distractions he would be possessed,
How he would pour himself in every strife,
And well-nigh change his own identity--
That it might keep from his capricious play
His genuine self, and force him to obey

Even in his own despite his being's law
Bade through the deep recesses of our breast
The unregarded river of our life
Pursue with indiscernible flow its way;
And that we should not see
The buried stream, and seem to be
Eddying at large in blind uncertainty,
Though driving on with it eternally.

But often, in the world's most crowded streets,
But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life;
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;

A longing to inquire
Into the mystery of this heart which beats
So wild, so deep in us--to know
Whence our lives came and where they go.
And many a man in his own breast then delves,
But deep enough, alas! none ever mines.
And we have been on many thousand lines,
And we have shown, on each, spirit and power;
But hardly have we, for one little hour,
Been on our own line, have we been ourselves--
Hardly had skill! to utter one of all
The nameless feelings that course through our breast,
But they course on for ever unexpressed.
And long we try in vain to speak and act
Our hidden self, and what we say and do
Is eloquent, is well--but 'tis not true!
And then we will no more be racked
With inward striving, and demand
Of all the thousand nothings of the hour
Their stupefying power;
Ah yes, and they benumb us at our call!
Yet still, from time to time, vague and forlorn,
From the soul's subterranean depth upborne
As from an infinitely distant land,
Come airs, and floating echoes, and convey
A melancholy into all our day.
Only--but this is rare--
When a beloved hand is laid in ours,
When, jaded with the rush and glare
Of the interminable hours,
Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear,
When our world-deafened ear
Is by the tones of a loved voice caressed--
A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast,
And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again.
The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain,
And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know.
A man becomes aware of his life's flow,
And hears its winding murmur; and he sees
The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze.

And there arrives a lull in the hot race
Wherein he doth for ever chase
That flying and elusive shadow, rest.
An air of coolness plays upon his face,
And an unwonted calm pervades his breast.
And then he thinks he knows
The hills where his life rose,
And the sea where it goes.

Teodoro Luna's Two Kisses

Teodoro Luna's Two Kisses
by Alberto Rios

Mr. Teodoro Luna in his later years had taken to kissing
His wife
Not so much with his lips as with his brows.
This is not to say he put his forehead
Against her mouth--
Rather, he would lift his eyebrows, once, quickly:
Not so vigorously he might be confused with the villain
Famous in the theaters, but not so little as to be thought
A slight movement, one of accident. This way
He kissed her
Often and quietly, across tables and through doorways,
Sometimes in photographs, and so through the years themselves.
This was his passion, that only she might see. The chance
He might feel some movement on her lips
Toward laughter.

There is something inside love

There is something inside love
by Juan Antonio Gonzalez-Iglesias
translated by Curtis Bauer

There is something inside love that belongs
to this world. In the multiple
instances in which everything
makes sense since you arrived,
in all the material suddenly converted
to gift, the meadow we walk through,
the terrace overlooking or wall that protects,
also in the sweetness of days,
in the humble routine of having you
beside me,
I notice it.

But something inside love isn't of this world.
Something that isn't abstract.
I try it, for example, in the warmth
of your skin, every time we fall asleep
together, and every morning
that I hope for nothing more than your first
kiss, when you recover
your place in my arms blindly.
Then we anticipate what one day we will have
definitively.
In order to name it
the notion of solstice seems necessary to me.
I won't reason this over any more. It is a kind
of first fruit.

three short poems

From a friend via Facebook.

three short poems
by Emily Remillard

1.

submerged in your deep gladness
your maple syrup joy
suspended like a slow-floating bubble
in your golden liquid presence

i marvel.

you have changed the whole conversation of my life.

2.

having just tossed something heavy and sacred into the river,
i find myself giggling.
you teach me how to make my feet light.

3.

when i wasn't looking
you replaced my rule book with our family photo album
you're telling me i looked like you all along
and didn't even know it.


(written October 2009)

Barter

Back to Sara Teasdale: flowery language on the surface, deeper underneath. I love the title and last lines of this poem. I know what it's like to barter necessities--sleep, food--for things that become more important in the moment.

Barter
by Sara Teasdale

Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And childrens's faces looking up
Holding wonder in a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,
Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And for your spirit's still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness,
Buy it and never count the cost;
For one white singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost,
And for a breath of ecstacy
Give all you have been, or could be.

What Was Told, That

From wherever spring arrives to heal the ground
From wherever searching comes, the look itself
A trace of what we're looking for
So be quiet now, and wait

And what was said to the rose to make it unfold
Was said to me here in my chest
So be quiet now, and rest
--David Crowder

What Was Told, That
by Jalalu'l-din Rumi
translated by Coleman Barks

What was said to the rose that made it open was said
to me here in my chest.

What was told the cypress that made it strong
and straight, what was

whispered the jasmine so it is what it is, whatever made
sugarcane sweet, whatever

was said to the inhabitants of the town of Chigil in
Turkestan that makes them

so handsome, whatever lets the pomegranate flower blush
like a human face, that is

being said to me now. I blush. Whatever put eloquence in
language, that's happening here.

The great warehouse doors open; I fill with gratitude,
chewing a piece of sugarcane,

in love with the one to whom every that belongs!

You Are The Absence

You Are The Absence

All this time I thought you’d be presence of mind,
a shocking electrical presence of mass
encroaching on my space.

I thought you’d be presence of feeling all this time,
a beating percussive presence of shape
invading my rhythm.

But you finally came,
and you are not so much a presence.

You are the quieting of my doubts,
the silence to my noise,
and the departure of the empty space at my side.

Everything good remains,
and I feel the exit of fear.
Even uncertainty whispers goodbye,
you don’t need me anymore.

To my surprise,
I lie down to sleep and realize:

you are the absence.

10.12.09
c.l.l.

The Suitor

The Suitor
by Jane Kenyon

We lie back to back. Curtains
lift and fall,
like the chest of someone sleeping.
Wind moves the leaves of the box elder;
they show their light undersides,
turning all at once
like a school of fish.
Suddenly I understand that I am happy.
For months this feeling
has been coming closer, stopping
for short visits, like a timid suitor.

A Blessing

I think I've forgotten to post this poem in the past, even though I love it and think its last three lines are some of the best I've ever read.



A Blessing
by James Wright

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.

Butcher's Block

Butcher’s Block (A Song)

Orion, swing your shield down low
Cover me in this time of need
Big Dipper, swing your ladle down low
Give me water in this time of need

Butcher’s block, I’ll lie on your scars
Of the past and I’ll look at the stars
All I’d like is a candle bright
On the sill of someone I love

River, rush your waters over land
Sail me in this time of need
Crops, push through the soil over land
Feed me in this time of need

Butcher’s block, I’ll lie on your scars
Of the past and I’ll look at the stars
All I’d like is a candle bright
On the sill of someone I love

Branches, lift your leaves to the sky
Shade me in this time of need
Mountains, show off your strength to the sky
Shelter me in this time of need

Butcher’s block, I’ll lie on your scars
Of the past and look at the stars
All I’d like is a candle bright
On the sill of someone I love

9.7.09
c.l.l.

As I Walked Out One Evening

(photo courtesy of flickr user veer8)

As I Walked Out One Evening
by W.H. Auden

As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
'Love has no ending.

'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

'I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

'The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.'

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
'O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

'In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

'In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

'Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.

'O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.

'The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

'Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

'O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

'O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.'

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

I Love You, Translated

I Love You, Translated

I’ll wait for you,
I’ll get it for you,
I’ll call you when I’m done,

safe travels,
God bless you,
okay fine, you won,

how are you,
have a good day,
I’m really not so fine,

I’m just kidding,
you make me laugh,
what’s yours is also mine,

you look nice,
have a good time,
let me help you with your coat,

whatever you wish,
this is really good,
that’s okay, you have my vote,

do you have your keys,
do you have enough cash,
do you need anything to eat,

I hope you sleep well,
I’ll get the bill,
take the comfortable seat,

I’ll hold the door,
I’ll hold the train,
let me play this song for you,

read this, you’ll like it,
I knew you’d laugh,
I know, I love it too.

8.3.09
c.l.l.

In Summer

(photo courtesy of Flickr user Rastko Radivojev)

In Summer
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Oh, summer has clothed the earth
In a cloak from the loom of the sun!
And a mantle, too, of the skies' soft blue,
And a belt where the rivers run.

And now for the kiss of the wind,
And the touch of the air's soft hands,
With the rest from strife and the heat of life,
With the freedom of lakes and lands.

I envy the farmer's boy
Who sings as he follows the plow;
While the shining green of the young blades lean
To the breezes that cool his brow.

He sings to the dewy morn,
No thought of another's ear;
But the song he sings is a chant for kings
And the whole wide world to hear.

He sings of the joys of life,
Of the pleasures of work and rest,
From an o'erfull heart, without aim or art;
'T is a song of the merriest.

O ye who toil in the town,
And ye who moil in the mart,
Hear the artless song, and your faith made strong
Shall renew your joy of heart.

Oh, poor were the worth of the world
If never a song were heard,—
If the sting of grief had no relief,
And never a heart were stirred.

So, long as the streams run down,
And as long as the robins trill,
Let us taunt old Care with a merry air,
And sing in the face of ill.

The More Loving One

(photo courtesy of Flickr user c@rljones)

The More Loving One
by W.H. Auden

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

Bonfires (A Song)

My mission: write music for this. Maybe.

Bonfires (A Song)

This morning’s reheated coffee
and the dying sapling on our land
remind me unavoidably of you.
The fire smoldered through the night,
but now the coals are turning blue.

And yeah, it’s glowing and bright,
and we could stoke it if we tried.
But in the end it’s not big enough to warm the both of us,
so I’ll walk away if you’ll be the one
to put it out.

Because I want bonfires, baby,
the size of the blaze in my heart.
I want bonfires, love,
I want to feel the heat from the start.

And yeah, this fire is glowing and bright,
and we could stoke it if we tried.
But in the end it’s not big enough to warm the both of us,
so I’ll walk away if you’ll be the one
to put it out.

Because I want bonfires, baby,
the size of the blaze in my heart.
I want bonfires, love,
I want to feel the heat from the start.

6.17.09
c.l.l.

Hickory

I've been listening to Iron & Wine's Around the Well CDs over and over again. This song's lyrics resonate with me right now.

Hickory
by Sam Beam

He kissed her once as she leaned on the windowsill
She'll never love him but knows that her father will
Her fallen fruit is all rotten in the middle
But her breast never dries when he's hungry

The money came and she died in her rocking chair
The window wide and the rain in her braided hair
A letter locked in the pattern of her knuckle
Like a hymn to the house she was making

Blind and whistling just around the corner
And there's a wind that is whispering something
Strong as hell but not hickory rooted

She kissed him once cause he gave her a cigarette
And turned around but he waits like a turned down bed
And summer left like her walking with another
And a sound of a church bell ringing

The money came and he died like a butterfly
A buried star in the haze of the city lights
A gun went off and a mother dropped her baby
On the blue feathered wing - we were lucky

Blind and whistling just around the corner
And there's a wind that is whispering something
Strong as hell but not hickory rooted

Beagle or Something

by April Bernard

The composer's name was Beagle or something,
one of those Brits who make the world wistful
with chorales and canticles and this piece,
a tone poem or what-have-you,
chimes and strings aswirl, dangerous for one
whose eye lids and sockets have been rashing from tears.
The music occupied the car where
I had parked and then sat, staring at
a tree, a smallish maple,
fire-gold and half-undone by the wind,
shaking in itself,
shocking blue morning sky behind, and also
the trucks and telephone wires and dogs
and children late to school along Orange Street, but
it was the tree that caused an uproar,
it was the tree that shook and shed,
aureate as a shaken soul, I remembered
I was supposed to have one—for convenience

I placed it in my chest, the heart being away,
and now it seems the soul has lodged there, shaking,
golden-orange, half-spent but clanging
truer than Beagle music or my forehead pressed
hard on the steering wheel in petition for release.

Terezín

A history of Terezin: click here.

Terezín
by Taije Silverman

—a transfer camp in the Czech Republic

We rode the bus out, past fields of sunflowers
that sloped for miles, hill after hill of them blooming.

The bus was filled with old people.
On their laps women held loaves of freshly baked bread.
Men slept in their seats wearing work clothes.

You stared out the window beside me. Your eyes
were so hard that you might have been watching the glass.

Fields and fields of sunflowers.

Arriving we slowed on the cobblestone walkway.
Graves looked like boxes, or houses from high up.

On a bench teenage lovers slouched in toward each other.
Their backs formed a shape like a seashell.
You didn't want to go inside.

But the rooms sang. Song like breath, blown
through spaces in skin.

The beds were wide boards stacked up high on the walls.
The glass on the door to the toilet was broken.
I imagined nothing.

You wore your black sweater and those dark sunglasses.
You didn't look at me.

The rooms were empty, and the courtyard was empty,
and the sunlight on cobblestone could have been water,
and I think even when we are here we are not here.

The courtyard was flooded with absence.
The tunnel was crowded with light.
Like a throat. Like a—

In a book I read how at its mouth they played music,
some last piece by Wagner or Mozart or Strauss.

I don't know why. I don't know
who walked through the tunnel or who played or what finally
they could have wanted. I don't know where the soul goes.

Your hair looked like wheat. It was gleaming.

Nearby on the hillside a gallows leaned slightly.
What has time asked of it? Nights. Windstorms.

Your hair looked like fire, or honey.
You didn't look at me.

Grass twisted up wild, lit gold all around us.
We could have been lost somewhere, in those funny hills.

And the ride back—I don't remember.
Why was I alone? It was night, then. It was still morning.

But the fields were filled with dead sunflowers.
Blooms darkened to brown, the stalks bowed.
And the tips dried to husks that for miles kept reaching.
Those dreamless sloped fields of traveling husks.

Now that no one looking

by Adam Kirsch

Now that no one looking at the night—
Sky blanked by leakage from electric lamps
And headlights prowling through the parking lot
Could recognize the Babylonian dance
That once held every gazer; now that spoons
And scales, and swordsmen battling with beasts
Have decomposed into a few stars strewn
Illegibly across an empty space,
Maybe the old unfalsifiable
Predictions and extrapolated spheres
No longer need to be an obstacle
To hearing what it is the stars declare:
That there are things created of a size
We can't and weren't meant to understand,
As fish know nothing of the sun that writes
Its bright glyphs on the black waves overhead.

Thou art not lovelier than lilacs...

Thou art not lovelier than lilacs...
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Thou art not lovelier than lilacs,—no,
Nor honeysuckle; thou art not more fair
Than small white single poppies,—I can bear
Thy beauty; though I bend before thee, though
From left to right, not knowing where to go,
I turn my troubled eyes, nor here nor there
Find any refuge from thee, yet I swear
So has it been with mist,—with moonlight so.

Like him who day by day unto his draught
Of delicate poison adds him one drop more
Till he may drink unharmed the death of ten,
Even so, inured to beauty, who have quaffed
Each hour more deeply than the hour before,
I drink—and live—what has destroyed some men.

Not Waving But Drowning

How many people do I see everyday who are not waving, but drowning? How often am I?

Not Waving But Drowning
by Stevie Smith

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

April Rain Song

by Langston Hughes

Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby
The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk
The rain makes running pools in the gutter
The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night
And I love the rain.

Spilled

Another villanelle today.

Spilled
by Bruce Bennett

It's not the liquid spreading on the floor,
A half a minute's labor with the mop;
It's everything you've ever spilled, and more.

The stupid broken spout that wouldn't pour;
The nasty little salesman in the shop.
It's not the liquid spreading on the floor,

A stain perhaps, a new, unwelcome chore,
But scarcely cause for sobs that will not stop.
It's everything you've ever spilled, and more.

It's the disease for which there is no cure,
The starving child, the taunting brutal cop.
It's not the liquid spreading on the floor

But through a planet, rotten to the core,
Where things grow old, get soiled, snap off, or drop.
It's everything you've ever spilled, and more:

The vision of yourself you can't ignore,
Poor wretched extra clinging to a prop!
It's not the liquid spreading on the floor.
It's everything you've ever spilled, and more.

If I Could Tell You

by W.H. Auden

Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

There are no fortunes to be told, although,
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you I would let you know.

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
The vision seriously intends to stay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

Suppose all the lions get up and go,
And all the brooks and soldiers run away;
Will Time say nothing but I told you so?
If I could tell you I would let you know.

Walking Poems

(photo by Sarah D.)

Walking Poems

the stories you tell with your presence
sparkle over the crowd in uncontained waves

without your knowledge
your stone ripples out
and you are received

the chaos you sense in your frame
departs from you in equations and brush strokes
you are more complete than you know

delusion: we believe our mouths only speak
forgotten: the feast of the senses,
the unwitting articulation of the body

day and night you pour forth speech,
you living piece of art

with ballads in your hair
and an epic in your eyes

4.23.09
c.l.

Double Vision

A friend once brought me a poetry anthology from a Filipino poet after she had been to the Philippines. She said she almost kept it for herself. I'm glad she gave it up.

Double Vision
by Carlomar Arcangel Daoana

I admire the mind's various
say on things:
the night is washed
by rain and angels,
stars grind in their ordeal
of fractured light, landscapes swing
with the song of cicadas.

How the mind goes after them--
architectures of air,
gossamer wings, ghosts
made out of pure ideas--
chasing them.

But I prefer the physical
fact of this world,
the heft and hardness of it,
the corrugated surfaces,
the upturned earth.

That's why when I held
my lover's palm to my face,
I thought of the network
of veins circulating blood
to this area, the wrist
like a small beating heart,
all tending their emergencies
in only to prove
the undeniability
of my presence.

Such is the unconditional
tenderness, the body
trained to inhabit completely--
sometimes out of love,
sometimes out of cruelty--
the given moment because,
unlike the mind,
it can never regenerate itself,
can never look back.

Fern Hill

This is one of my top five favorite poems.

Fern Hill
by Dylan Thomas

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace.

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

The Ploughman's Prayer to God

This is a long one.

During my junior year of college, a group of fellow poetry-lovers created a club. Though we had various discussions about the name of our gathering, it remained unassumingly the Poetry Club. We met in the basement of the old brick library, in a small room with a heavy table that heard our thoughts and told no one. It was a safe place.

One night, one of the girls brought in a discovered poem (how or where she found it I do not remember) and read it aloud. I remember it because the poem was long and beautiful, and she read it simply and honestly with a lilt in her inflection that made the world stop for a moment. Even now, it's difficult to find a good record of this poem online.

The Ploughman's Prayer to God
by Johann von Teppel

Just and eternal keeper of the world,
God of all gods,
awful and wonderful Lord of lords,
almightiest of spirits,
prince of all princes,
source from which all goodness flows,
holiest of the holy,
crown-giver and the crown,
rewarder and reward,
elector in whose hand is all election,
blesser of those to whom thou givest life,
joy and delight of the angels,
molder of forms most high,
patriarch and child,
hear me.

Oh light that needs no other light,
light that outshines and darkens all external light,
radiance from before which all other radiance flees,
radiance like to which all light is as darkness,
light beside which all is shadow,
light that said in the beginning “let there be light,”
fire that burns unquenched, everlastingly, without beginning or end,
hear me.

Holiness above all things holy,
way without false turnings to life everlasting,
best and which there is no better,
life from which all things live,
truth of very truth,
wisdom embracing all wisdom,
issue of all strength,
perceiver of all right and wrongdoing,
succor in all errors and transgressions,
quencher of all thirsts,
comforter of the sick,
seal of highest majesty,
keystone of heaven’s harmony,
knower of all hearts,
shaper of all countenances,
planet holding sway in all planets,
sovereign influence of the stars,
mighty master of the heavenly court,
law before which the orbits of heaven can nevermore bend from their fixtures,
bright sun,
hear me.

Assuagement of all fevers,
master of all masters,
only father of all creation,
ever-present watcher of all ways and at all arrivals,
almighty escort from womb to tomb,
artificer of all forms,
foundation of all good works,
lover of all truth,
hater of all corruption,
only just judge,
arbiter from whose decree no single thing may depart evermore,
hear me.

Balm of our weariness,
fast knot which none may unloose,
perfect being having power over all perfection,
very knower of all secrets and of things known to none,
giver of eternal joys,
bestower of earthly blessedness,
host, ministrant, and friend to all good men,
hunter to whom no track is hid,
mold of all thought,
judge and unifier,
measurer and container of all circles,
gracious harkener to all them that call upon thee,
hear me.

Never failing support of the needy,
comforter of them that hope in thee,
feeder of hungry,
all powerful creator of being,
from nothing and of nothing from being,
quickener of all beings momentary, temporal, or eternal,
preserver and destroyer of life,
thou who imaginest, conceiveth, giveth form to, and takest away all things,
hear me.

Everlasting light,
eternal luminary,
true-faring mariner whose vessel never founders,
ensign beneath whose banner victory is sure,
author of rightness,
architect of the foundations of the earth,
tamer of the seas,
mingler of the inconstant air,
kindler of fire,
creator of all elements,
of the thunder,
of the lightning,
of the mist,
of the hail,
of the snow,
of the rain,
of the rainbow,
of the dew and the mildew,
of the wind,
of the frost,
and of all their workings sole craftsman,
monarch of the heavenly host,
emperor in whose service none may fail,
all gentlest, all strongest, and all merciful creator,
pity and hear me.

Store from which all treasures spring,
fountain from which all pure streams flow,
shepherd from whom none goes astray,
lodestar to which all good things strain and cleave as the bees to their queen,
cause of all causes,
hear me.

Good above all goods,
most august Lord Jesus,
receive graciously the soul of my dear and best beloved wife.
Grant her eternal peace,
refresh her with the dew of thy grace,
keep her under the shadow of thy wing.
Accept her, Lord, into thy perfect satisfaction,
where the least and the greatest alike have their contentment.
Let her, oh Lord, from whom she is come,
dwell in thy kingdom with the blessed,
the everlasting spirits.
I grieve for Margaretha,
my chosen wife.
Grant her, gracious Lord,
in the mirror of thine almighty and eternal godhead,
wherein the choirs of angels have their light to see,
and contemplate herself everlasting,
and everlastingly rejoice.
May all things that live under the blazon of the eternal standard-bearer,
all creatures whatsoever,
help me to say
with heart tranquil and serene,
amen.

The Poem I Almost Did Not Write

I have been privileged to know people in real life who write better poetry than I do. This was written by my friend Laura and published in our college's literary magazine. It is still teaching me what good poetry is.

The Poem I Almost Did Not Write
by Laura P.

they hold lightbulbs high above their heads—
(they are the lovers, you know)
the glass is for how fragile, how intimately close
to dropping, dashing, smashing
against any surface, really, any one they choose,
and the light, of course, is the energy,
no matter which numbers and symbols
they use to measure its vigor,
but also (just below the surface, mind)
there is the intellectual tap dance
working to a frenzy all the thoughts they thought,
all the miles they paced and the daring adventures
love called them to in their minds
as they fell into each other’s arms
and let the lightbulbs shatter on the ground.

Silver

I found this poem in one of my English textbooks when I was young, and inexplicably fell in love with it. I hadn't read much poetry before this, and I think the alliteration and imagery captivated me. I also remember not knowing what the heck a "shoon" was.

Silver
by Walter de la Mare

Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog;
From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep
Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws and a silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.

If

I'm surprised I haven't posted this poem here before, because it bears significance as the first long poem I memorized as a child. I really like the thoughts it expresses, as well as the cadence of the stanzas. I wouldn't be surprised if you've read this one before, but it's worth another look.

If
by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Children in a Field

by Angela Shaw

They don't wade in so much as they are taken.
Deep in the day, in the deep of the field,
every current in the grasses whispers hurry
hurry, every yellow spreads its perfume
like a rumor, impelling them further on.
It is the way of girls. It is the sway
of their dresses in the summer trance-
light, their bare calves already far-gone
in green. What songs will they follow?
Whatever the wood warbles, whatever storm
or harm the border promises, whatever
calm. Let them go. Let them go traceless
through the high grass and into the willow-
blur, traceless across the lean blue glint
of the river, to the long dark bodies
of the conifers, and over the welcoming
threshold of nightfall.

Favorite Song Lyrics

Today, not a poem, but a collection of some of my favorite lines in songs, which are also poetry.

Favorite Song Lyrics

If you want to kiss the sky, you'd better learn how to kneel.
--U2, "Mysterious Ways"

Every heart is a package tangled up in knots someone else tied.
--Josh Ritter, "Kathleen" (recently discovered)

The book of love is long and boring
No one can lift the damn thing
It's full of charts and facts and figures
and instructions for dancing
But I love it when you read to me
and you can read me anything.
--Peter Gabriel, "The Book of Love"

And maybe
You're gonna be the one that saves me
You're gonna be the one that saves me
And after all
You're my wonderwall.
--Ryan Adams cover, "Wonderwall"

Mother, don't worry
I killed the last snake that lived in the creekbed
Mother, don't worry
I've got some money I saved for the weekend
Mother, remember
being so stern with that girl who was with me?
Mother, remember
the blink of an eye when I breathed through your body?

So may the sun rise,
bring hope where it once was forgotten.
Sons are like birds, flying
upward over the mountain.
--Iron & Wine, "Upward Over the Mountain"

Hurricanes will come
Earthquakes break the walls
Oceans rise
Empires fall

Enter world, light unshown
Follow heart, follow home
Here we are, light unshown
One round heart, one round home
--The Wailin' Jennys, "Apocalypse Lullaby"

Fare thee well, my own true love
Farewell for a while; I'm going away
But I'll be back, though I go ten thousand miles
Ten thousand miles, my own true love
Ten thousand miles or more
The rocks may melt and the seas may burn
If I should not return
--Mary Chapin Carpenter, "10,000 Miles"

Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise
Thou mine inheritance, now and always
Thou and thou only first in my heart
High King of heaven, my treasure thou art.
--"Be Thou My Vision"

I'd rather feel the pain all too familiar
than be broken by a lover I don't understand.
--Jars of Clay, "Jealous Kind"

If you'd call my name out loud
If you'd call my name out loud
Do you suppose that I would come running?
Do you suppose I'd come at all?
I suppose I would.
--Dispatch, "Out Loud"

She won't falter easy
She'll be careful, she'll be coy
But still she paints her heart
among the musings of a boy

At the break of morning
day awaits her when she sleeps
Deep inside her dreams
is all the beauty that she keeps

If you find her, tell her that I love her
If she hears you, ask her heart to come
--Future of Forestry, "If You Find Her"

A Secret

If you pluck a string
or sing a note, I’m yours.

Judgments crumble into dust.
I fall in love.

For I imagine the gentleness
it takes to bend melody
could be applied to my strays from pitch.

You could tune me.
You would be the first.

In the lamplight, your chords
would be deep wells of quiet.

And in the evening
you could sing me home.

4.14.09
c.l.

Yellow Bowl

Another poem of the day from poets.org.

Yellow Bowl
by Rachel Contreni Flynn

If light pours like water
into the kitchen where I sway
with my tired children,

if the rug beneath us
is woven with tough flowers,
and the yellow bowl on the table

rests with the sweet heft
of fruit, the sun-warmed plums,
if my body curves over the babies,

and if I am singing,
then loneliness has lost its shape,
and this quiet is only quiet.

Single Young Adult

Our fathers tell us
whatever we want
can be had by effort,
and effort is the good.
Work hard, and you will attain.

So we do as they say,
and gain the same things:
steady jobs and fading dreams.
But in the spare minutes of our livelihoods,
we question the truth of these parental claims.

For not all things are born out of energy.
Hope takes leave like a bird we can’t follow.
We desperately wish our fathers were right;
that we could race doubt and win;
that we could reach out for luck and beauty
like the baseball on that summer afternoon.

If only they were right.
If only, by effort, we could leave nothing undone.
For example, if I told you your love
was at the end of this road
how fast would you run?

4.12.09
c.l.

Without You

I woke up in the sun on Tuesday without you.
Dug my feet into the empty carpet without you.
Squinted without you.
Washed my face without you.
Cold cereal without you.
Clean shirt without you.
Fresh air without you.
Life without you.

I woke up in the sun on Tuesday without you,
and tried not to weep when
my hand, flung over the side of the bed,
did not meet yours.

9.26.06
c.l.

Fractions of Flowers, Inches of Air

Fractions of Flowers, Inches of Air

Spring is like a perhaps hand…
--e.e. cummings

cummings said it better
than I ever could, so I don’t even know
why I’m trying.

All I know is
the willow on the corner
has sparked into green mist
that clings like liquid
to its uplifted limbs;

when I walk I kick up
the bright scent of hyacinths
that dances inches from the earth.;

and the forsythia has wrought
irrepressible beauty
in the junkyards and parking lots.

Everything gets a chance in April.
Seeds, young love,
and color, which is also called hope.

4.8.09
c.l.

Untitled by Gregory Orr

Today, a cheating departure from my own work, only because I can't stand not to share something this beautiful. I received this in my inbox this morning. I intend to buy the book it is excerpted from.



Untitled (This is what was bequeathed us)
by Gregory Orr

This is what was bequeathed us:
This earth the beloved left
And, leaving,
Left to us.

No other world
But this one:
Willows and the river
And the factory
With its black smokestacks.

No other shore, only this bank
On which the living gather.

No meaning but what we find here.
No purpose but what we make.

That, and the beloved’s clear instructions:
Turn me into song; sing me awake.

I'll Take What I Can Get

In an absence,
you are substance.
I renounce the normal fears,
the liabilities of closeness,
and I’ll take what I can get.

Is it perilous to dive in
so recklessly?
Maybe.
But “people are better than no people”
and there you stand.

This poem isn’t even much good.
But words are better than no words
and I’ll take what I can get.

4.3.09
c.l.

Found Poem: Facebook

Found poems are verses culled from an already existing piece of writing. We practiced them several times in my college English classes. For this one, I referred to my Facebook home page, mostly status updates and comments.

What's on your mind?

i don't remember
actually sleeping last night.
back to writing
which is even harder.

up early again.
i suppose i shall take it
as it comes.
why was this so normal
ten years ago
but so challenging now?

i haven't lost it yet.
that helps a bit.
in fact, i do believe
that i much prefer it.

added, added, and updated.
it never matters,
going to or coming home from.
watching, reading, teaching,
i swim for brighter days.

4.2.09
c.l.

NaPoWriMo

This month I'm going to try to participate in NaPoWriMo, or National Poetry Writing Month. The website Poets.org is challenging poetry enthusiasts to write one poem a day for the month of April.

Since I know that I won't be able to keep up with writing new material every day, I'm going to at least pledge to post one of my own poems each day, though some of them might be old. I'll try not to repeat anything I've already posted on this blog, though I may slip up.

I'm starting with my most recent poem. Happy National Poetry Month!

Nostos
for James

You told us
that one of the excesses
that can malnourish the mind
is blinding emotion.
Will you think it inappropriate, then,
that I write in this form,
considered to be the ultimate
outpouring of emotion,
to tell you that I miss
every word you said
because their worth has
sparked to pricelessness
in the interim?
The mind should point forward,
a tall ship on the memory sea,
but I have capsized.
Emotion is slower,
but will it not one day
also float me home?

3.9.09
c.l.

The Caverns Inside Us

The Bone Church, Kutná Hora, Czech Republic

The Caverns Inside Us

Inside our bodies
Deep inside the frames of our bodies
There are caverns.

Take one cell
Adjust its measurements, enlarge it
And you will see the vast empty unused spaces.

This is what deafens us
The echo of our anatomy - heartbeats, breaths
Ringing through our hollow molecules.

The din leaps out of us
Calling for answers, a word spoken in our native tongue
We long to be silenced.

--c.l.
2.1.09

The Ordering of Love

I'd like to take a moment to feature an anthology of poetry from one of my favorite authors. Madeleine L'Engle (1918-2007) was a vibrant woman whose many occupations--actor, author, poet, wife, mother--coalesced to produce some really beautiful works. My favorite books of hers are the ones in the Murray trilogy: A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, and A Swiftly Tilting Planet. These books expanded my faith and my world, opening my eyes to new kinds of beauty in the universe.

This anthology of Madeleine's poetry was published in 2005, just shortly before her death. Though she is primarily known as a novelist, her poetry is powerful and skillful, fanciful and experimental. It's a joy to read, and I highly recommend it for fellow lovers of poetry.

An excerpt:

Love Letter Addressed To:
by Madeleine L'Engle

Your immanent eminence
wholly transcendent
permanent, in firmament
holy, resplendent
other and aweful
incomprehensible
legal, unlawful
wild, indefensible
eminent immanence
mysterium tremendum
mysterium fascinans
incarnate, trinitarian
being impassible
infinite wisdom
one indivisible
king of the kingdom
logos, word-speaker
star-namer, narrator
man-maker, man-seeker
ex nihil creator
unbegun, unbeginning
complete but unending
wind-weaving, sun-spinning
ruthless, unbending:
Eternal compassion
helpless before you
I, Lord, in my fashion
love and adore you.

Instruments (2)

(photo taken february 2007)

Instruments (2)
by Madeleine L'Engle

Hold me against the dark: I am afraid.
Circle me with your arms. I am made
So tiny and my atoms so unstable
That at any moment I may explode. I am unable
To contain myself in unity. My outlines shiver
With the shock of living. I endeavor
To hold the I as one only for the cloud
Of which I am a fragment, yet to which I'm vowed
To be responsible. Its light against my face
Reveals the witness of the stars, each in its place
Singing, each encompassed by the rest,
The many joined to one, the mightiest to the least.
It is so great a thing to be an infinitesimal part
Of this immeasurable orchestra the music bursts the heart,
And from this tiny plosion all the fragments join:
Joy orders the disunity until the song is one.

A kind of new year's resolution.

(photo courtesy of Flickr user Mark Schurig)

From "The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God"
by Rainer Maria Rilke

I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one else has dared to wish for
may for once spring clear
without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one ever has,
streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.

First Coming

marktredwitz, germany, november 2007

First Coming
by Madeleine L'Engle

He did not wait till the world was ready,
till men and nations were at peace.
He came when the Heavens were unsteady,
and prisoners cried out for release.

He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine. He did not wait

till hearts were pure. In joy he came
to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame
he came, and his Light would not go out.

He came to a world which did not mesh,
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.

We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

Leaves

photo courtesy of flickr user Mike O'C

Leaves
by Lloyd Schwartz

1

Every October it becomes important, no, necessary
to see the leaves turning, to be surrounded
by leaves turning; it's not just the symbolism,
to confront in the death of the year your death,
one blazing farewell appearance, though the irony
isn't lost on you that nature is most seductive
when it's about to die, flaunting the dazzle of its
incipient exit, an ending that at least so far
the effects of human progress (pollution, acid rain)
have not yet frightened you enough to make you believe
is real; that is, you know this ending is a deception
because of course nature is always renewing itself—
the trees don't die, they just pretend,
go out in style, and return in style: a new style.

2

Is it deliberate how far they make you go
especially if you live in the city to get far
enough away from home to see not just trees
but only trees? The boring highways, roadsigns, high
speeds, 10-axle trucks passing you as if they were
in an even greater hurry than you to look at leaves:
so you drive in terror for literal hours and it looks
like rain, or snow, but it's probably just clouds
(too cloudy to see any color?) and you wonder,
given the poverty of your memory, which road had the
most color last year, but it doesn't matter since
you're probably too late anyway, or too early—
whichever road you take will be the wrong one
and you've probably come all this way for nothing.

3

You'll be driving along depressed when suddenly
a cloud will move and the sun will muscle through
and ignite the hills. It may not last. Probably
won't last. But for a moment the whole world
comes to. Wakes up. Proves it lives. It lives—
red, yellow, orange, brown, russet, ocher, vermilion,
gold. Flame and rust. Flame and rust, the permutations
of burning. You're on fire. Your eyes are on fire.
It won't last, you don't want it to last. You
can't stand any more. But you don't want it to stop.
It's what you've come for. It's what you'll
come back for. It won't stay with you, but you'll
remember that it felt like nothing else you've felt
or something you've felt that also didn't last.

Home

Sokolov, Czech Republic, 2007

Home
by Bruce Weigl

I didn't know I was grateful
for such late-autumn
bent-up cornfields

yellow in the after-harvest
sun before the
cold plow turns it all over

into never.
I didn't know
I would enter this music

that translates the world
back into dirt fields
that have always called to me

as if I were a thing
come from the dirt,
like a tuber,

or like a needful boy. End
Lonely days, I believe. End the exiled
and unraveling strangeness.

Recent ones.

twisted lily, summer 2008

Two poems from a college classmate.

Recent ones
by Esther Shaver


A tree that had lost a very small branch
cried to the earth that life was unfair.
The earth gave comfort and, in time,
the branch scarred over and the tree healed.
The earth smiled to herself
at the small wisdom of the tree
and grasped her great clefts and rifts
and tried to close them.
And peace there was for a while.
But then the tree was made into a gun.
And greater rifts were cut to find
the heart of the earth.
And the earth wept for the days
when she had had time to close rifts great
and clefts small;
when peace, though broken by war, could be restored again.
And then, a tree that had lost a very small branch
cried to the earth that life was pain...



Two sides of this coin,
leading to 'myself' and 'the wide world'
Taken each by themselves
I find flat and unknown respectively
But taken together,
I am filled with the world
And the world has meaning to one small person.
Ambiguity and mystery
fail time and again
to discover this knowing, paradox eternal.
I cannot contain the world,
and the world cannot be valid
except there be those like me to accept its being.
It's a lonely fate, being human:
Called to live
until all else fails.
And driven to communicate
until veritable intercourse is needed.
Curses be for the willfully lonely.

We gaze into the night...

(photo courtesy of flickr user jahdakine)

...We gaze into the night
as if remembering the bright unbroken planet
we once came from,
to which we will never
be permitted to return.
We are amazed how hurt we are.
We would give anything for what we have.

--from "Jet" by Tony Hoagland

The Remains

(photo taken in May 2008)

The Remains
by Mark Strand

I empty myself of the names of others. I empty my pockets.
I empty my shoes and leave them beside the road.
At night I turn back the clocks;
I open the family album and look at myself as a boy.

What good does it do? The hours have done their job.
I say my own name. I say goodbye.
The words follow each other downwind.
I love my wife but send her away.

My parents rise out of their thrones
into the milky rooms of clouds. How can I sing?
Time tells me what I am. I change and I am the same.
I empty myself of my life and my life remains.

Last Night As I Was Sleeping

Fountain in Český Krumlov, taken in June 2008

This is a poem that's lovely in English in such a way as to make you wonder how much more beautiful it is in its original language.

Last Night As I Was Sleeping
by Antonio Machado
translated by Robert Bly

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth,
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.

Last night as I slept,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that it was God I had
here inside my heart.

That Music Always Round Me

(photo by me)

That Music Always Round Me
by Walt Whitman

That music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning--
yet long untaught I did not hear;
But now the chorus I hear, and am elated;
A tenor, strong, ascending, with power and health,
with glad notes of day-break I hear,
A soprano, at intervals, sailing buoyantly
over the tops of immense waves,
A transparent bass, shuddering lusciously
under and through the universe,
The triumphant tutti--the funeral wailings,
with sweet flutes and violins--all these I fill myself with;
I hear not the volumes of sound merely--
I am moved by the exquisite meanings,
I listen to the different voices winding in and out, striving,
contending with fiery vehemence to excel each other in emotion;
I do not think the performers know themselves--
but now I think I begin to know them.

A Windmill Makes A Statement

I signed up for a poem-a-day with the Academy of American Poets site (link to the right) and have been receiving some gems. Here's one I particularly enjoyed.


(photo courtesy of flickr user "im pastor rick")

A Windmill Makes A Statement
by Cate Marvin

You think I like to stand all day, all night,
all any kind of light, to be subject only
to wind? You are right. If seasons undo
me, you are my season. And you are the light
making off with its reflection as my stainless
steel fins spin.

On lawns, on lawns we stand,
we windmills make a statement. We turn air,
churn air, turning always on waiting for your
season. There is no lover more lover than the air.
You care, you care as you twist my arms
round, till my songs become popsicle

and I wing out radiants of light all across
suburban lawns. You are right, the churning
is for you, for you are right, no one but you
I spin for all night, all day, restless for your

sight to pass across the lawn, tease grasses,
because I so like how you lay above me,
how I hovered beneath you, and we learned
some other way to say: There you are.

You strip the cut, splice it to strips, you mill
the wind, you scissor the air into ecstasy until
all lawns shimmer with your bluest energy.

It's National Poetry Month!

I know I should be all ambitious and try to post a new poem every day for the month of April, but I don't have that much energy, and if you want a poem a day, you can go to this convenient link: click.

Passing Afternoon

I love it when song lyrics can be classified as poetry. Here is a video that is NOT MINE, but the background music is the song below. Courtesy of YouTube user 79cd36.



I just realized that I love this song because it has whispers of my mother in it.

Passing Afternoon
by Iron & Wine

There are times that walk from you
Like some passing afternoon
Summer warmed the open window of her honeymoon
And she chose a yard to burn
But the ground remembers her
Wooden spoons, her children stir her Bougainvillea blooms

There are things that drift away
Like our endless numbered days
Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made
And she's chosen to believe
In the hymns her mother sings
Sunday pulls its children from their piles of fallen leaves

There are sailing ships that pass
All our bodies in the grass
Springtime calls her children until she lets them go at last
And she's chosen where to be
Though she's lost her wedding ring
Somewhere near her misplaced jar of Bougainvillea seeds

There are things we can't recall
Blind as night that finds us all
Winter tucks her children in, her fragile china dolls
But my hands remember hers
Rolling around the shaded ferns
Naked arms, her secrets still like songs I'd never learned

There are names across the sea
Only now I do believe
Sometimes, with the window closed, she'll sit and think of me
But she'll mend his tattered clothes
And they'll kiss as if they know
A baby sleeps in all our bones, so scared to be alone

Two Countries

(Sokolov, Czech Republic, Fall 2007)

Two Countries
by Naomi Shihab Nye

Skin remembers how long the years grow
when skin is not touched, a gray tunnel
of singleness, feather lost from the tail
of a bird, swirling onto a step,
swept away by someone who never saw
it was a feather. Skin ate, walked,
slept by itself, knew how to raise a
see-you-later hand. But skin felt
it was never seen, never known as
a land on the map, nose like a city,
hip like a city, gleaming dome of the mosque
and the hundred corridors of cinnamon and rope.

Skin had hope, that's what skin does.
Heals over the scarred place, makes a road.
Love means you breathe in two countries.
And skin remembers--silk, spiny grass,
deep in the pocket that is skin's secret own.
Even now, when skin is not alone,
it remembers being alone and thanks something larger
that there are travelers, that people go places
larger than themselves.

Equally Skilled

This is a song by Jon Foreman, lead singer of Switchfoot, from his Fall-EP.

Equally Skilled
from Micah 7:1-9

How miserable I am.
I feel like a fruit-picker who arrived here
after the harvest.
There's nothing here at all,
nothing at all here that could placate my hunger.
The godly people are all gone;
there's not one honest soul left alive
here on the planet.
We're all murderers and thieves,
setting traps here for even our brothers.

And both of our hands are equally skilled
at doing evil, equally skilled;
at bribing the judges, equally skilled;
at perverting justice;
both of our hands,
both of our hands.

The day of justice comes
and is even now swiftly arriving.
Don't trust anyone at all;
not your best friend or even your wife.
For the son hates the father;
the daughter despises even her mother.
Look, your enemies arrive
right in the room of your very household.

And both of their hands are equally skilled
at doing evil, equally skilled;
at bribing the judges, equally skilled;
at perverting justice;
both of their hands,
both of their hands.

No, don't gloat over me.
Though I fall, though I fall,
I will rise again.
Though I sit here in darkness,
the Lord, the Lord alone--
He will be my light.
I will be patient as the Lord
punishes me for the wrongs I've done against Him.
After that, He'll take my case,
bringing me to light and the justice
for all I have suffered.

And both of His hands
are equally skilled
at ruining evil, equally skilled;
at judging the judges, equally skilled;
administering justice,
both of His hands,
both of His hands
are equally skilled
at showing me mercy, equally skilled;
at loving the loveless, equally skilled;
administering justice;
both of His hands,
both of His hands.

A Tribute to Wendell Berry

I think in the past I had run across a poem or two of Wendell Berry's in some anthology or another, but I had never stopped to drink in his poetry as it deserves. I was reminded of him by a blog I frequent whose writers moved to the country and started a small farm, mostly because of the inspiration of his work. And it is indeed beautiful.


(photo courtesy of flickr user "Fort Photo")

The Peace of Wild Things
by Wendell Berry

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.


What We Need Is Here
by Wendell Berry

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.


Water
by Wendell Berry

I was born in a drought year. That summer
my mother waited in the house, enclosed
in the sun and the dry ceaseless wind,
for the men to come back in the evenings,
bringing water from a distant spring.
Veins of leaves ran dry, roots shrank.
And all my life I have dreaded the return
of that year, sure that it still is
somewhere, like a dead enemy's soul.
Fear of dust in my mouth is always with me,
and I am the faithful husband of the rain,
I love the water of wells and springs
and the taste of roofs in the water of cisterns.
I am a dry man whose thirst is praise
of clouds, and whose mind is something of a cup.
My sweetness is to wake in the night
after days of dry heat, hearing the rain.

The Darkling Thrush

(photo courtesy of flickr user "roadsidephotos")

The Darkling Thrush
by Thomas Hardy

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

The Mystic's Christmas

The Mystic's Christmas
by John Greenleaf Whittier

"All hail!" the bells of Christmas rang,
"All hail!" the monks at Christmas sang,
The merry monks who kept with cheer
The gladdest day of all their year.

But still apart, unmoved thereat,
A pious elder brother sat
Silent, in his accustomed place,
With God's sweet peace upon his face.

"Why sitt'st thou thus?" his brethren cried,
"It is the blessed Christmas-tide;
The Christmas lights are all aglow,
The sacred lilies bud and blow.

"Above our heads the joy-bells ring,
Without the happy children sing,
And all God's creatures hail the morn
On which the holy Christ was born.

"Rejoice with us; no more rebuke
Our gladness with thy quiet look."
The gray monk answered, "Keep, I pray,
Even as ye list, the Lord's birthday.

"Let heathen Yule fires flicker red
Where thronged refectory feasts are spread;
With mystery-play and masque and mime
And wait-songs speed the holy time!

"The blindest faith may haply save;
The Lord accepts the things we have;
And reverence, howsoe'er it strays,
May find at last the shining ways.

"They needs must grope who cannot see,
The blade before the ear must be;
As ye are feeling I have felt,
And where ye dwell I too have dwelt.

"But now, beyond the things of sense,
Beyond occasions and events,
I know, through God's exceeding grace,
Release from form and time and space.

"I listen, from no mortal tongue,
To hear the song the angels sung;
And wait within myself to know
The Christmas lilies bud and blow.

"The outward symbols disappear
From him whose inward sight is clear;
And small must be the choice of days
To him who fills them all with praise!

"Keep while you need it, brothers mine,
With honest seal your Christmas sign,
But judge not him who every morn
Feels in his heart the Lord Christ born!"

The Trumpet Child

(photo courtesy of flickr user "mrittenhouse")

A song I've been listening to recently.

The Trumpet Child
by Over the Rhine

The trumpet child will blow his horn
Will blast the sky till it’s reborn
With Gabriel’s power and Satchmo’s grace
He will surprise the human race

The trumpet he will use to blow
Is being fashioned out of fire
The mouthpiece is a glowing coal
The bell a burst of wild desire

The trumpet child will riff on love
Thelonious notes from up above
He’ll improvise a kingdom come
Accompanied by a different drum

The trumpet child will banquet here
Until the lost are truly found
A thousand days, a thousand years
Nobody knows for sure how long

The rich forget about their gold
The meek and mild are strangely bold
A lion lies beside a lamb
And licks a murderer’s outstretched hand

The trumpet child will lift a glass
His bride now leaning in at last
His final aim to fill with joy
The earth that man all but destroyed

Song for a Winter's Night

(photo courtesy of flickr user "Vangral")

Song for a Winter's Night
by Sarah McLachlan

the lamp is burning low upon my tabletop
the snow is softly falling
the air is still within the silence of my room
i hear your voice softly calling

if i could only have you near
to breathe a sigh or two
i would be happy just to hold the hands i love
upon this winter's night with you

the smoke is rising in the shadows overhead
my glass is almost empty
i read again between the lines upon the page
the words of love you sent me

if i could know within my heart
that you were lonely too
i would be happy just to hold the hands i love
upon this winter's night with you

the fire is dying now, the lamp is growing dim
the shades of night are lifting
the morning light steals across my windowpane
where webs of snow are drifting

if i could only have you near
to breathe a sigh or two
i would be happy just to hold the hands i love
and to be once again with you

to be once again with you